Gaming tournaments are exciting for certain players and are a widely used form of casino promotion. During a typical gaming tournament, players play a tournament game on individual electronic gaming machines (EGMs) to try to win tournament points. For instance, a player wins tournament points when her play of the tournament game results in a winning outcome. The player who accumulates the most tournament points by the end of the tournament is the tournament winner.
Because outcomes of plays of tournament games are randomly determined in accordance with a set average expected point payout, it's common for some players not to win many tournament points early on in the tournament, leaving them lagging behind the other players. This is problematic because those players may believe that they can't realistically win enough tournament points to overcome the leaders and win the tournament. This significantly dampens those players' enjoyment of the tournament, and leaves those players feeling left out and like they're just going through the motions to finish the tournament (if they bother to finish at all). The problem compounds as the tournament progresses, since the leaders usually pull further and further ahead the longer the tournament goes. So by the time the tournament nears its end, most of the players have become bored or stopped playing since they don't think they can win.
There is a continuing need to provide a gaming tournament with new and improved features that keep all players excited and involved throughout its duration.